Jo's Old Site

Last night my mum decided to go to Ipswich Dog Training, and she also decided to take Dita, Ilse, and me. And while Ilse was waiting her turn to get put through a runout, a mother and daughter came up to admire Ilse and I heard this mother tell her daughter, always ask the person with a dog if you can pat their dog but the girl was a bit shy and so her mother asked instead. And this lady also told me that they have two minis of the same breed and colour at home, and I found out that one of their mini schnauzers was named Poppy and she was the same age as Ilse.

Yesterday I went to Luke’s Place and won a game of ten pin bowling on the wii. As I manage to get three strikes and a few spares. I also went through a few books that the people that run Luke’s Place wanted to sell at the markets.

And also I wanted to get some ideas on what I could do with mosiac artwork, and so I watched a person who is totally death but can lip read stick small white gravel like pebbles on a jar, and he also used some blue coloured sand and the jar looked quite good.

I was also telling one of the supervisors that mosiac seems similar to folk art and she agreed with me, and then I remembered seeing a magazine on beadwork and as I was speaking to this same supervisor she then suggested sand painting and showed me the different coloured sands they had. Then last night I became aware that I was thinking what I could do with it? And thought to have another look through my fantasy drawing books as I decided to try that type of art with the sand painting.

Garth Nix wrote Sabriel which is the first book in The Old Kingdom Trilogy that was published by Allen and Unwin and this book’s ISBN number is 1 74114 040 4 and the book tells us about a girl called Sabriel who is eighteen and is waiting to see her father who is known as Abhorsen so that they could talk about her future as she was thinking about going to university. Sabriel’s father isn’t an ordinary father as he is similar to an necromancer but instead of raising the dead Abhorsens return the dead to the dead.

And Sabriel’s father does try to send a message to his daughter and he also gives her the seven bells which are tools to send the dead back. Sabriel also is aware that her father is trapped somewhere in the land of the dead, and she is determined to get him out.

But as it took a while to find him she realizes that he can no longer live with the living, and it also took a while for her to accept people referring to her as the Abhorsen. She also finds a guy that has been petrified for two hundred years and brings him back too and she and Mogget call him Touchstone.

And when she found her father, he informs his daughter that Touchstone is a blood relation to the royal family. 

He also tells his daughter while they were returning to the land of the living where she had to go to find a certain person’s burial site: as this person caused a lot of problems for all the Abhorsens. As even though they knew other people were searching all they could do when this evil person showed up was banish him with their bells.

Alison Goodman wrote this book that was published by Harper Collins Publishers, and it has won aurealis awards. Also the book’s ISBN number is 978 0 7322 8800 6 and this enjoyable story is about a boy named Eon who along with eleven other boys is a dragoneye candidate and these boys are in training to hopefully become chosen as a dragoneye apprentice and the one that will be chosen this year will be the rat dragon apprentice but no one knows how dragons chooses the person.

Eon also has a secret, and is told by his master that no one should ever discover it. And this is because Eon is really a girl called Eona and if anyone found out that he’s not a boy the punishment for him will be death, despite the fact that he can see all the dragons accept one which is called the mirror dragon which hasn’t been seen for five hundred years.

Also to protect Eon’s identity he is a cripple, and he becomes rather upset after he discovers that his master had apologized for it: as he knew that Eon was a female and he found out that he arranged for the accident to be done to protect what he really was as it made him untouchable.

But while the ceremony was in progress, the mirror dragon turns up and chooses Eon and he found out that he had to say that his name was Eona but he doesn’t at first because he knew what the punishment was and he had to protect himself and his master and Rilla.

When I went to Luke’s Place on Tuesday we were organizing what we wanted to put on next month calendar, and one of next month’s activities will be cooking lunch. And though I was making suggestions about what we could cook I noticed that the supervisor wasn’t writing any of them down, perhaps this was because she knew what the others likes and dislikes were or she only wanted one suggestion? Anyway I thought to ask what about some vegetarian meals and as I was looking at the supervisor that was writing ideas down she told me “we are all carnivores here” but I did make the offer of bringing in vegetarian recipes.

And when I looked towards the opposite end the co-ordinator and another supervisor both told me that I could do that. I noticed that they were smiling too.

I used to see geckos inside my flat quite a lot. But I think my miniature schnauzer who I call Ilse or Ilsa has been deterring them, though they still come in my parents house. And here’s a new haiku poem that I wrote last night that gives a clear description of a lizard’s reaction to Ilse who often chases them.

A lizard stopped in
its tracks when it saw my dog
then it turned around.

This story is the fifth book of The Obernewtyn Chronicles that Isobelle Carmody wrote, and it was published by the Penguin Group. And the book’s ISBN number is 978 0 143 00943 6.

Zarak is getting strange letters from his father, so he and Elspeth plan to go where Zarak’s father is to find out what has been happening. But when they get there they find the town is closed as none of the residents are allowed to leave. However Elspeth and Zarak manage to get inside this closed town with the help of their friend Brydda.

They then find Zarak’s father and the person he is staying with and they find out what has been happening and more. As Elspeth is told by the Councilman that he heard that there is a planned invasion of Hedra and Elspeth decides that this invasion of Hedra has to be stopped. But then she is handed over to Malik and it turns out that he was the traitor. But someone is on her side and helps her to escape Malik and instead of Elspeth being Malik’s prisoner Malik is now a prisoner himself.

I also think that Malik was made into a null by Ariel as when they got someone to enter his mind the person who attempted this died and Malik died also.

Elspeth then finds herself on The Stormdancer as she attempts to do what Zarak suggested but it doesn’t go according to plan, and she finds herself taken prisoner again.

But luckily Ariel isn’t there on Herder Isle when Elspeth is there.

And she discovers that the other misfits didn’t die when a ship got sunk, as they told her that they were on The Stormdancer too and they were  disguised as Hedra. Elspeth and the other misfits then get help from the shadows, and others and they band together and attempt to take over Herder Isle.

Then as that was happening Elspeth discovers that Ariel is planning to affect the entire West Coast with a disease. And she finds out that this disease is being carried by Domick and she does everything she can to stop it from happening.

This book was written by Cynthia Chapman Willis and kept my interest all the way through. It was originally published by Feiwel and Friends but the book also has the Square Fish logo on it too and this is an imprint of Macmillan. 

Also the ISBN numbers for this book is ISBN-13: 978 0 312 56113 0 and ISBN-10: 0 312 56113 X. The story was about a girl called Dill MacGregor who is grieving along with everyone else in her family as her mother had died of some sort of cancer.

Dill is also the only child. And her best friend who is Cub tries to do anything he can, he also comes from a large family, and as I read further I discovered that he learnt to appreciate his brothers more as he realizes Dill’s difficulty of being the only child.

Dill’s father has also got rid of all his deceased wife’s animals, except for a husky crossbred who they named Dead End who goes wandering and Dill and Cub is desperate to find him. And some of her dad’s decisions upsets his daughter who is determined to keep everything the way her mum had left it.

But while they are looking for Dead End they overheard some adults talking about a dog pack killing sheep. And even though the last time they saw Dead End he had something that looked like blood on his coat Dill refuses to believe that Dead End is apart of this pack of dogs as he was her mother’s dog. Dill also has bad feelings about hospitals too, and she didn’t want G.D her grandfather to go to hospital even though he was sick because she feared that she would lose him too.

As a result he didn’t go when the general practitioner advised it but in the end he did as he was in quite a bit of pain. He also advises Dill to face things head on.

And though this is good advice Dill gets herself in a mess because she didn’t tell G.D the truth about Dead End, perhaps because she wanted to convince herself that there was another yellow husky type dog around. She also keeps Dead End’s disappearance from her father too.

Yesterday I went shopping at Plainlands with mum instead of swimming, and I brought Ilse a box of Lucky Dog Mini Dog Biscuits (the beef and bacon flavoured variety). And when I got home I picked up the box of dog biscuits and the bottom of the box came undone and all the biscuits poured out onto the floor.

I then turned the box upside down and picked up all the dog biscuits. And I think Ilse managed to get one while I was preoccupied as I heard her making crunching sounds. Then after I had finished picking the dog biscuits up I then transferred them into another container.

Ilse has been licking one of her back feet on and off for a couple of days, and I got my mother to look at it yesterday and she found that one of Ilsa’s toenails is missing.